Taxi protest leads to mass lockup

Rights advocates claim the incarceration of 40 taxi drivers is an act of political repression that is meant to intimidate the public

By:Tim Rogers/ Nicaragua Dispatch | October 4, 2012

A judge’s decision this morning to incarcerate 40 taxi drivers without bond is being decried by defense lawyers as an act of “political repression” and “a message of state intimidation.”

“In Nicaragua, social protests are not allowed,” defense lawyer Manuel Urbina told local reporters after the judge ordered his clients to be held without bail until their trial starts in 11 days.

The taxi drivers were arrested Monday during a protest over gas subsidies in Managua. The protest turned violent when riot police tried to forcibly remove the taxi drivers from roundabouts where they had blocked traffic with parked cars and burning tires.

Four police officers and at least two taxi drivers were injured during the clashes. The injuries suffered by the cabbies came in a retaliatory beatdown by police after one officer was dragged underneath a car by a taxi driver who tried to flee the scene.

Gonzalo Carrion, a lawyer with the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), says the police’s retaliation against the taxi drivers was “vengeful” and “brutal.”

CENIDH says testimonies from the beaten taxi drivers is alarming.

Ivania de Socorro Roque told The Nicaragua Dispatch that her husband, Alexis Selva, 39, was beaten viciously by 10 cops in the back of a police truck. She had to speak on his behalf because her husband is in a hospital bed with his jaw wired shut. Roque says Selva’s jaw and teeth were broken with the butt of a rifle.

“Alexis is the only one in our family who has a job,” Roque said between tearful sniffles. “If he doesn’t work, our three children don’t eat.”

Roque says her young family is suddenly in a very precarious position. In addition to her husband’s injuries and arrest, their family’s taxi has been impounded by the police, she lamented.

Roque says the hospital room next to her husband’s is occupied by Lester Rodríguez, the taxi driver who ran over police officer Heriberto José Castro. Rodríguez, who is being accused of assault on an officer and destruction of public property, was pulled from his car and beaten by police after dragging Officer Castro several meters down the street.

Roque says police officers outside Rodríguez’s hospital room wouldn’t let her in to see him to determine if his injuries are as serious as her husband’s.

Demanding equal application of the law

CENIDH’s Carrion says if the state is going to hold 40 taxi drivers accountable for the violence of Monday’s protest, the police also need to identify the officers who acted with excessive brutality and call them on the carpet.

The problem, he said, is that the law is being enforced selectively in Nicaragua—both in the streets, with “selective police repression,” and in the courts.

“Putting all the taxi drivers behind bars en masse is also delivering a political message. The message is: If you protest, you are going to jail. And that is a message that is meant to intimidate other people,” Carrion told The Nicaragua Dispatch.

” retaliatory beatdown by police after one officer was dragged underneath a car by a taxi driver who tried to flee the scene. . . .”

Why do I find myself on the side of the police on this one?

“Social protest” is blocking traffic and burning tires?

Joseph

I agree with John.I find these protestors extreamly violent.I am sure the police responded with the force needed to stop the stiuation from getting ever more violent.

http://playaroca.com PRD

I agree with Joseph who agrees with John. Protests are fine, blocking traffic and running down police is not. But I will say that 11 days in jail “Waiting” to be tried is a bit excessive. Protest!
Now what are these subsidies for? Free money to operate? Taxi bailouts? There needs to be massive protests about all oil generated energy, gas being one of them, but more so for electricity, now, with ALBA subsidies (loans that have to be paid back) I personally would be paying near .37 KWH, more than double that it was 2 years ago. Did Oil prices double? No, and 2 years ago there were no subsidies or debt to Alba either.
Taxi drivers as well as all others are getting shafted by the high cost of energy. Did you know that Union Fenosa is squashing solar energy generation, refusing “net metering” making it that you PAY them 67% to “tie-in”, thus making it prohibitive to do so and making oil consumption the only economic alternative.

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